You can stop pinching yourself, Great Britain. Andy Murray really
is Wimbledon champion.

Fans can be forgiven for not being able to accept reality. We
had been conditioned to believe that Novak Djokovic's dead carcass was always a
temporary condition, that certainly at some point in the third set of the
Wimbledon final he would reanimate like Glenn Close at the end of "Fatal
Attraction." And the top-ranked player in the world certainly tried, fighting
back from three match points on Murray's serve to earn a couple of break chances.
But as with Close rising up from the bathtub, he could only make it interesting.
The final result was inevitable, even if no one realized it. When the last
shot finally fell to the grass, Murray stumbled about holding his head, as did
the rest of the nation.

"I didn't really know what I was doing the sort of minute or
two after the match," the new champion later said. "Immediately after [winning
match point], I didn't know where I was looking or where I was walking. I was
in a bit of a daze."

The entire kingdom was in a daze. Suddenly, Britons had to
reevaluate themselves. Offered the Independent newspaper: "Thanks to Andy
Murray, Britain will no longer be seen as a nation of losers, says LTA."

That isn't exactly what Lawn Tennis Association honcho Leon
Smith said, but close enough. "Too many times in the past," Smith said, "some
people saw our players -- quite often very unfairly -- as also-rans who
couldn't get over the line."

British athletes are, of course, famed for being losers. You
know how the story goes: Their empire dribbled away to nothing after World War
II, and so did their confidence in themselves, but it's so nice that they keep
a stiff upper lip about it all.

This perception of the British is all myth, though it's a
myth zealously embraced by the British themselves.

View full sizeAndy Murray with British Prime Minister David Cameron.The Associated Press

For those who don't have an emotional stake in it, the
history of British sports actually looks pretty darn good. Sure, England has
only won the World Cup once -- and it was nearly 50 years ago -- but that's one
more time than perennial football-talent producers like The Netherlands and
Portugal.

England won the Rugby World Cup in 2003 and was runner-up in
2007. Only the U.S. and China tallied more gold medals at the 2012 Olympics
than Great Britain. The U.K.'s Lennox Lewis retired in 2004 as the undisputed
heavyweight champion of the world. Nick Faldo and Ian Woosnam earned golf's
number-one ranking in the 1990s, followed more recently by Lee Westwood, Luke
Donald and Rory McIlroy. And let's not even get started about the Brits'
prowess at snooker.

So Andy Murray was not playing against type by winning
Wimbledon last Sunday. It had been 77 years since the previous British champion
not because the country is filled with stoical losers but because, even though
Wimbledon represents the pinnacle of the sport, Great Britain has never really
been a tennis nation. It's a cold, rainy place, the British isles. Tennis thrives
in the sun: Florida, Australia, France. Let's remember that, before Fred Perry
won three straight titles in the mid-1930s, SW19 hadn't seen a British winner
since 1909. Let's also remember that, after his Wimbledon run, Perry followed
the sun to Southern California -- and became an American citizen.

Still, this latest Wimbledon drought had been an annual
ritual for a long time, a regularly scheduled appointment for Britons to keep
their self-esteem in check. Home-grown fans didn't know what to make of the
scene last Sunday as their favorite Scotsman tracked down even Djokovic's biggest blasts, consistently
out-rallied tennis' rally king and simply refused to buckle under the pressure
of the moment. What could it possibly mean? Will the England national team
start winning penalty shootouts? The British mind reels at the possibilities.

So how will Britain adjust to having one of its own as defending
champion -- as the favorite -- at next year's Wimbledon? The British psyche
might not be able to handle it. Of course, it might be able to avoid this
existential problem if Scotland would just move up its planned vote on
independence by a few months.